The thoughts of an introvert nut

iTerm and alt+backspace

I recently changed jobs, going from a Linux environment to macOS. When I worked in the terminal in Linux, I got used to using alt+backspace to delete entire words. Unfortunately, it seems that this function isn’t native to the Terminal application that macOS has.

However, in the application iTerm2 it’s possible to add your own key-combinations so that alt+backspace, or in this case cmd+backspace, works as it does in Linux.

Just follow these instructions:

Open up iTerm2 and head on over to Preferences

Go to Keys -> Key Mappings and press the +.

In the Action field, select Send Hex Code.

In the field Keyboard Shortcut, just press cmd+backspace.

In the field Hex code enter 0x1B 0x08.

And that’s it! cmd+backspace in iTerm2 should now have the same functionality as alt+backspace in Linux!